by Laura Conaway

We almost named ourselves the Global Pool of Money, after a This American Life special report on the credit crisis by Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg.

Tonight, it looks like world financial types are singing the same tune. With the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers skidding toward the brink:

[b]anks were in tense talks to create a pool of money worth up to $100 billion to lend troubled financial companies, the official said on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing. And officials at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve were expected to announce they are prepared to be more generous in the Fed's emergency lending program for commercial and investment banks.

Lehman's problems appear to stem from the source troubling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — namely, a real estate market gone haywire.

What makes a Lehman failure so toxic to the global economy is that Lehman has acted as a safety net for lots of other banks. Lehman did this through credit default swaps. I'll post more on those Monday morning, and Adam's due up on Morning Edition. Meanwhile, just think of credit default swaps as a kind of insurance, and the banks holding ones from Lehman Brothers as long-tailed cats suddenly surrounded by a roomful of rocking chairs. (The news is not much better for AIG.)